The Intermedia Group releases its first tablet edition for IF, a trade magazine for the film industries of Australia and New Zealand

Some publishers wait to launch their first tablet editions because they are debating whether to support the platform, some publishers are seeking an easy, low cost digital publishing solution, and some publishers are simply waiting to create a product they can be proud of.I don’t know why the Australian B2B publisher has waited so long to release their first tablet edition, but they can certainly be proud of the effort put into IF Magazine, a very well designed and produced digital edition for the film industry in Australia and New Zealand.

The new iPad app for IF (Inside Film) allows readers to download three issues of the bi-monthly magazine, the latest being the April-May issue. Individual issues cost $4.99 ($5.49 AUS), with annual subscriptions priced at $24.99 ($25.99 AUS).

The issues are designed to be read in landscape, which saves file size – something that is vitally important if you are going to load your tablet edition with video.

Should a digital magazine about film contain video? Doesn’t that sound like a positively stupid question. But sadly many U.S. produced digital editions have been simply replica editions without any video at all. And as for Variety, well, just compare the vision behind that that iPad app and this one for IF (hint, there is no comparison).

If there is to be any complaint about this natively designed tablet edition it is simply that it does not allow subscribers to sign into their accounts so they are not charged twice for issues. But since so many publishers are doing this I can only suspect that this is being done for one of two reasons: either the publisher has no way to authenticate subscribers and so is taking the easy way out, or they want to make readers choose between print and digital.

The Sydney-based publisher has quite a number of titles in their stable, so we can only hope that the reaction to this tablet edition is positive enough to encourage them to continue to launch iPad apps.

Here is a short tour of the new app which shows some of the video content, and gives you a good idea of the general design of this very well done digital edition:

It’s not often you give glowing reviews so I thought I’d bit the bullet and pay the $5.49 for the latest issue and check it out.

It’s a nicely done app however I find the landscape only orientation a difficult read as a number of pages feature a large masthead and big image so there’s a fair bit of scrolling involved that wouldn’t be so apparent on a dual orientation version.

The quality of the videos are great and the whole magazine is very clean and crisp.